Hello and welcome to the Osterholm Update, a podcast on COVID-19 and other infectious diseases with Dr. Michael Osterholm.

Dr. Ostrome is an internationally recognized medical detective and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, or CIDRAP, at the University of Minnesota. In this podcast, Dr. O. Strom

draws on nearly 50 years of experience investigating infectious disease outbreaks to provide

straight talk on the latest infectious disease and public health threats. I'm Chris Dahl,

reporter for CidWap News, and I'm your host for these conversations.

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Osterholm Update podcast.

There's so much going on in our country right now that what might ordinarily be a time for widespread public reflection, the five-year

anniversary of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, has seemingly gotten lost in the shuffle.

I host a podcast that was launched in response to the pandemic, and it's nearly escaped to my attention.

But a quick look at the COVID-19 timeline on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention website

took me back to those days of fear and uncertainty in early March of 2020.

On March 3, 2020, the CDC reported 60 COVID-19 cases across 12 states.

On March 11th, after more than 118,000 cases in 14 countries and 4,291 deaths, the World Health

Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

On March 13th, the Trump administration declared a nationwide emergency.

On March 15th, the New York City public school system shut down to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The first episode of this podcast aired on March 24th, 2020. I'm sure for many of our listeners, those days are not easily

forgotten. For some, it's simply a bad memory. For others, it was when things changed forever.

And for as much as we have moved on from COVID-19 as a society, the impact of the

pandemic still lingers. It has changed us, for good and for bad. The five-year anniversary of the

pandemic is among the topics we'll be covering on this March 20th episode of the Ostrom Update.

We'll also update you on what's happening in Washington, D.C. and its impact on our efforts to fight infectious diseases at home and abroad, provide you the latest information on the Texas measles outbreak, take a look at COVID flu and respiratory sensational virus trends, review some new research on long COVID, and discuss H5N1 avian flu.

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